What if we were blind? Would we want to see again?
That’s a stupid question, we respond. Of course. Who wouldn’t?
In one of the first-known cases of cataract surgery, a man regained his sight at age 50. Wonderful, we exclaim! His sight was restored!
The sensory overload was too much. He’d learned to get along reliably with touch and sound. The visual cacophony of returned sight? He would close his eyes and pretend blindness.
Experts call his condition “visual agnosia” or mental blindness.
His restored sight brought on depression, and not long after his sight was restored, this previously healthy man died of pneumonia.
Let’s ask the question again. What if we were blind? Would we want to see again?
Acts 10:1-48. It’s a long passage, but here’s the gist of it. We have Peter and Cornelius. One had denied the Christ and would go on to become the spiritual rock on which the church was built. The other was a centurion of the Italian Cohort, a man as un-Jew-like as they came.
Both believed in God.
Peter had seen the Christ in the person of Jesus. He had walked and talked with him. Cornelius only knew that he feared God and prayed to him continually.
Cornelius’ spiritual eyes were about to be restored.
You see, we are all blind at birth. Children may retain an innocence in their youth, but until we come to know Christ, we are blind in our spiritual beings. We must have that sight restored by the salvation that comes through the cross.
Acts 10:3 tells us:
“About the ninth hour of the day [Cornelius] saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, ‘Cornelius.’ ”
The passage goes on to tell us that Cornelius was terrified. His eyes had been opened, but what he saw was outside of his comprehension. It was new. It was fantastic. It was a vision of unimaginable proportions.
The purpose of Cornelius’ vision was to open Peter’s spiritual eyes. Peter had refused to see that the message brought by Jesus was for all men, not just the Jews. About the same time as Cornelius’ vision, Peter had one of his own in which God told him that what’s sanctified by God cannot be made unclean by man.
What do we do when God reveals himself to us? Do we panic and go into visual agnosia, refusing to see the spiritual world God tries to open up to us? If so, we’ll become spiritually dead within a short time.
Instead, we must become as Peter and Cornelius and embrace our spiritual sight restored. God’s new vision may terrify us, but to run from it is to miss God’s new direction for our lives.
When we see with God’s eyes, we can truly say our sight has been restored.
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Code: FGO.H.03.15.vp.esv